Issue 4, 2019

This article constitutes an attempt to present the market themes through the prism of the freedom of the market actor to pursue their self-interest and the associated expectations for achievement of certain justice. The freedom of the human as a market actor has a number of specific characteristics as compared to other freedoms they receive in their role as a citizen of a democratic state, such as the freedom of speech, of religion, of association, etc. The value concept of the market is embedded in the dual nature of the market actor. As a consequence, these results in duality of their interest and two qualitatively differing social environments where they strive to realise it. The freedom this market actor has in these two social environments is different, which gives rise to expectations for achievement of two dimensions of market justice. One is related to the specifics of the relationships of exchange between the market actors and the other is related to the distribution of competitive market opportunities between them.
JEL: A1; Z1

The purpose of the paper is justification of the competitiveness concept definition as an object of quantitative measurements and related basic concepts of the theory of competitiveness based on their logical deduction from the minimum number of basic concepts and fundamentals of economic theory to ensure the internal consistency of the theory’s system of key concepts.
In spite of a large number of studies devoted to the theory of competitiveness and the problem of its measurement in recent decades, the state of the conceptual and categorical apparatus of the theory and, first and foremost, the definition of the very concept of competitiveness, cannot be considered satisfactory. Based on the requirements of logic imposed on scientific concepts and systems of concepts in arbitrary scientific field, as well as on basic concepts of economic theory, the paper attempts to clarify the content and formulation of the competitiveness concept and to construct a system of key concepts of the theory through logical deduction. This has required clarification (revision) of a number of the theory‘s concepts formulations and, first of all, the concept of economic agent; allowed to identify and/or establish logical connections between them; determine the place of each of them in the concepts’ system; to discover concepts, which scientific consistency as well as expediency of inclusion into conceptual system of the theory of competitiveness are debatable; achieve rigorous definitions of these concepts and internal consistency of the concept system as a whole; identify the range of theoretical issues to be solved and/or more in-depth study, which logically follow from the proposed wording of key concepts’ definitions of the theory of competitiveness.
JEL: B41; D01; E00

In order to establish a relationship between the labor market and migration, we consider the following 11 countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, and Croatia. The explored period is 2000-2017. The following methodology is applied: namely VAR methodology. We prove that in Bulgaria, unlike other post-communist EU Member States, wage is the foremost factor governing the international migration of the labor force. The research reveals that foreign direct investments have a strong impact on labor productivity, wages, respectively on emigration and labor immigration. In our study we advocate a policy of accelerating income growth, combined by the introduction of a tax-deductible minimum.
JEL: G32; H20; H50

The article proposes a method for evaluating and rating the effectiveness of banks on the basis of coefficient analysis. It is proposed to calculate 24 coefficients, which allow to estimate capital-resource, credit-investment and general effectiveness of banks. According to the developed method, the rating of banks of Ukraine and Bulgaria was formed. Based on the rating, the banks of both countries are divided into 4 groups: high, sufficient, low and critical effectiveness. The rating indicators prove the higher effectiveness of the banks in Bulgaria and generally the higher stability of the banking system compared to Ukraine. The study developed an integral indicator of the bank's operation, which is a tool for a comprehensive assessment of the bank's performance and can be used to analyze the absolute effectiveness and stability of banks in different countries. Along with effectiveness, the integral indicator includes indicators of bank capital adequacy and its qualitative characteristics (customer confidence, image, transparency, comfort and simplicity). According to the results of the integral assessment, taking into account the balance of coefficients in groups, banks occupy the corresponding position in the matrix, which indicates their class (strong, mediocre, weak) and the presence of problems in certain aspects of the activity.
JEL: С13; G21

In modern times the business success of enterprises is more and more thе result of the development of science and the accelerated introduction of new advances in technology. Innovations are becoming the key to success. In these conditions the importance of technological transfer also grows and it becomes a main “strategic way of meeting the challenges of globalization in business” (Mayer and Blaas, 2002). With the growth in importance of the transfer of technologies increases the interest in the theoretical elucidation and empirical research of various aspects of the absorption capacity of enterprises and its determinants, characterizing the capability for timely recognition, acquisition and use of new advances.
In view of the above, the aim of this paper is to present, in brief, an opinion on the determinants of the absorption capacity of enterprises and the factors that affect the formation of the them as well as the findings of empirical research of their state and impact on the intensity of technological transfer, innovative activity and business results of industrial enterprises in Bulgaria.
JEL: O32

This paper describes modeling of cargo flows management of a network air carrier by a model that allows to use the advantage of well-developed packages that implement linear programming methods. Several characteristics of the underlying mathematical models are presented and the stages of the modeling process are determined.
JEL: C6; R42; L93

Having an adapted model for prediction of Bulgarian corporate insolvency is a useful tool for a wide range of financial statement users. In the past sixty years, plenty of papers was published in this field. However, a statistically significant insolvency prediction model hasn't been constructed based on Bulgarian financial ratios. The purpose of the study was to solve this task. Linear Discriminant Analysis was used to select variables and to quantify the coefficients of the insolvency financial indicators for Bulgarian companies. The classification tests were applied to initial and test samples. Analysis of the classification accuracy was made comparing the adapted model and the revised Altman’s Z-score model in 2000. The result confirmed the need for adaptation of Altman’s Z-score model.
JEL: C51; C52; C53; D22; G33

This paper has explored the role of electricity consumption financial development and trade openness on the CO₂ emissions. The study utilizes annual data from 1972 to 2014 and employs various robust econometric techniques. Our analysis reveals that there is no long-term relationship financial development, trade openness and CO₂ emission. However, the short-run analysis indicates significant relationship among the variables. The results also reveal that the bidirectional relationship between electricity consumption and CO₂ emissions, and a unidirectional causality from financial development to CO₂ emissions. Our results imply that policies that will promote renewable energy consumption and financial development can be pursued concurrently.
JEL: C32; G0; O44; Q43

Defining the value of mineral water when using it in spa facilities includes two components: on one hand is the meaning that mineral water has for guests when they are using spa procedures and on the other the resources which are being saved from not heating regular water. The subject of this study is to show the results of the development of a mathematical model created to evaluate the cost of using natural warm and hot mineral water springs compared to artificial warming of water in spa facilities. The research objective is mineral water as main asset source for spa users and economic source for spa facilities. An interesting topic is the level of influence of the water component for the choice of the consumers. The contemporary consumers of spa services change their requirements for the spa facilities and the availability of mineral water is additional advantage for them. Mineral water springs provide a natural resource that can improve the quality of life of many people. Spa tourism is one of the effective ways to use those springs, and it has the potential to become a key element of our vacation planning, choice of tourist destination and lifestyle. The main purpose of the study is to present a model for determining the value of the mineral waters, thus quantifying the potential benefits of using them in the spa facilities, which is the seeked and desired characteristic of spa services from tourists, and showing losses caused by the waste of such waters. Explaining the nature and significance of the mineral water springs gives the base on which we can say that besides a natural resource that can have beneficial properties for human health, the springs can be a valuable source of savings that can be achieved by using their thermal potential.
JEL: Z32; Q26